Darius Rucker on New Hootie Album: ‘Absolutely’ Happening

Just because Darius Rucker‘s now burnin’ up the country charts doesn’t mean he’s abandoned the band that made him a pop star.

Interviewed on Film Festival Radio, Darius—who in November won the Country Music Association’s New Artist of the Year award—reveals his plans for laying down new tracks and going out on the road with Hootie & the Blowfish bandmates Dean Felber, Jim Sonefeld and Mark Bryan.

"I love bein' a dad," Darius (above) tells us. "I was put on the earth to be a dad."

When host Janice Malone asks, “Will there ever be a Hootie & the Blowfish reunion project or tour?” the Only Wanna Be with You singer replies:

“Absolutely. We wouldn’t even call it a reunion-because we don’t feel like we’ve ever broken up. We still feel like a band. We still do suff together all the time.

“It won’t be anytime soon. But, yes, within the next few years, there will be another Hootie & the Blowfish record tour.”

Hootie, which won Best New Artist honors at the 1996 Grammys, and whose Cracked Rear View became the top-selling album of 1995, disbanded in 2008—according to Darius himself. During the group’s AOL Music Sessions show in August of that year, he said:

“We have four charity gigs every year and we will still do them, but we will not do a record or tour. Even when we play now, we’re not as close as we were. I don’t miss the getting big or all that stuff, I miss when we were real close.”

Darius also discusses his feelings about shooting for fame in other realms of entertainment.

When Janice notes that he looks like he’s got what it takes to be an actor, he says:

Hootie in their heyday.

“No, that’s not me. If Martin Scorsese were to call me or if Ron Howard were to call me and say, ‘Hey, I got this little part that I would love for you to do,’ yea, I’d do it in a heartbeat, in a minute, without even thinking about it.

“But I don’t want to go out there, s – – -, and then do all those crazy—I just want to sing.”

Darius also doesn’t want to party much these days either, preferring a nice quiet domestic life to showbiz insanity.

“When I’m [not performing], I’m with my family. That’s the only thing I really wanna do. I don’t wanna go traveling anywhere. I want to go home and drive the kids to school, and pick’em up and go to the grocery store for my wife.

“My life outside of bein’ a musician is so normal it’s scary. I go to Target. I take the kids to school, I drop them off.

“After the [Academy of Country Music Awards], when I won, people asked me if I partied that night.

“I had a few beers. But at 5:30 I was on a plane goin’ to a teacher-parent conference.”